Wario Land: Shake It

Finally, another great success for the Wii! While Wii titles that are genuinely all around good seemingly come far too infrequently, Wario Land: Shake It! was well worth the wait! Immediately when you pop the game into your Wii you’ll be stepping into the time machine and will feel like you’re back in the golden days of Nintendo. Wario Land: Shake It builds upon the great successes of past Nintendo titles without distorting it beyond recognition or fun by excessive use of the Wii’s features. What I mean by this is that the controls will feel extremely intuitive. Everything works exactly as you think it would – if you play any Wii games at all you know that this is becoming less and less common. You hold the Wiimote sideways and use the buttons like a simple NES title. While there is some waggle involved it isn’t to the point where it is over done. For instance, to get the coins out of a bag of money you shake the Wiimote until the bag is empty. A quick downward flick of the Wiimote will make Wario blast at the ground which is necessary throughout the game to solve the puzzles of each stage and find the treasures hidden within.

While the game is of course not in HD – it still will look great on an HDTV with the Nintendo component cables. The actual artwork and graphics of the game are quite impressive! The cartoonish style images are colorful, fun, and pretty straight forward. The game looks and feels a lot like Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land for the original Game Boy. Wario will use familiar moves like jumping up and smashing the ground or charging into enemies and breakable bricks. What the game does not have are the various power up hats, which really doesn’t detract from the game experience as every power Wario does have is all you’ll need. Each level has 3 treasures hidden within — trying to find them all is a rewarding experience alone. You’ll need to think on your feet to solve puzzles while meanwhile trying to make it to the end of the level before time runs out. The game features a Super Mario Land 3 (NES) map system with a boss at the end of each world. Each level also has challenges built in such as collecting X amount of gold coins, avoid falling into water, so on and so forth – which continues to add into the reply factor. While the game is not very hard, to actually get the full extent you will need to put time and thought into it.

Like any Nintendo game, an outstanding sound track will play you along in your journey as Wario to accumulate mass wealth and treasure. Not only does the music really add to the game but simple sound effects are pretty good too – while they may not be the most inventive, they fit.

Overall, Wario Land: Shake It! is most definitely worth the buy for the upcoming holiday season, it is bound to please everyone who owns a Wii!